InsiderOnline Blog: October 2004

After listening to John Fund detail the practice of "Stealing Elections," I'm really hoping one Presidential candidate pulls out a solid win or we'll be dealing with Florida 2000-type situations and worse.

"It is more important this year that the winner win beyond the 'margin of litigation' than who the winner is," Fund said.

I'm planning to check with the Board of Elections to make sure my new Virginia registration is accounted for. That way, I can make sure I'm not one of the people who has to cast one of these sketchy provisional ballots. This doesn't sound good at all:

It's a safe bet you will hear more about provisional ballots before Election Day--and a lot more if the election goes into overtime again. The provisional ballot could become this year's equivalent of Florida's infamous punch-card ballot, and it could decide who wins the presidency.

This is the first election held under the Help America Vote Act of 2002. One of its key provisions is a requirement that people in all 50 states whose names aren't on voter registration rolls be given a provisional, or conditional, ballot that will then be cross-checked with public records after the polls close to see if it is valid.

With 200,000 polling places nationwide, an average of five provisional votes per precinct would mean a million such votes. But in a year when manic registration efforts make it likely there will be a flood of first-time voters, officials expect far more. In Los Angeles County alone more than 100,000 people voted provisionally in 2000, with about 60% of them ultimately declared valid.

But that's the rub. Democrats are preparing to make aggressive media and legal arguments that almost all provisional votes must be counted, a reprise of their 2000 Florida rallying cry of "Count every vote."

Command Post has a solution-- bloggers watchdog the election just like they do the mainstream media. He even registered a domain name--CleanVote2004.com.